Family

I spent a Saturday with my dad in Washington, D.C. as he ran errands and hung out with his friends. I was the 8-year-old munchkin tagging along with Pops. There I was with him and some guys from the neighborhood standing around a green Ford pick-up truck tailgate. We were in the non-touristy, pre-gentrified section of the city and reminiscent of the neighborhood where my barbershop was located back home. I was hungry. I asked my dad if I could walk to the corner store to grab a snack. Yes, he said as he handed me a $5 bill. Off I went to indulge in my daily Twinkie delight. Minutes later, I walked back to the circle of guys and my dad motioned to me. “Don’t walk with your money out,” he said. “Count your change and put it in your pocket.” We stood out there for no more than 20 minutes and we jumped back in the car heading back to Northern Virginia. Then Pops said something that has remained with me ever since: “Look around. This is what people call ‘the ghetto.’ Never look down on the people here. You’re lucky that we live in a big house in Stafford, but many of your cousins still live here. Never look down.”

My cousins, my cousins, my cousins.

Family means the world to me, but I recognize that not everyone feels similarly. I define family as a collective forged by shared genetics, surnames, and/or life experiences. Subsequently, family is wholly dependent upon the cohesion of individuals. And the communities we serve as public health ambassadors would be non-existent without these families.

I’m reminded of my father’s quote each day as a Global Health Corps fellow at HIPS. I’m often conducting outreach in communities often labeled as ghettos (I never liked the term “ghetto”; it marks the area as unsafe without context and attempts to strip the humanity of the community of families living there). Though I have been fortunate to experience so many luxuries like travel and a college education, quite a few of our clients’ lives tell a different story. Combined with the oppressive nature of the ghetto, many of the families there are grappling with the use of illicit drugs and their ramifications — my family included.

I know of loved ones who have been addicted to heroin and crack/cocaine. They lost careers and became estranged from their children because of their drug use. I know of the cousin who has been to rehab twice and is still taking sobriety one day at a time. It’s masked as one of those family secrets, yet we often use language that expresses shame and embarrassment about his situation. Though unsaid, we want him to reach a better place. And the drug rehab counselors he’s encountered have provided support – possibly, the support that his biological family struggles to provide. Those counselors acknowledge my cousin’s humanity and work to empower him, not rebuke him with stigma and rejection. And I’m aiming to do the very same for people in D.C. As I told my co-fellow, Majo, I think of our clients as my cousins who haven’t been introduced as cousins yet.  They’re someone’s cousins and that is good enough.

And the part of my dad’s quote about not looking down on anyone, well that is what HIPS is all about. HIPS has served Washington, D.C. for 20 years and is known for its harm reduction outreach with sex workers and drug users; however, that snapshot is too narrow. The scope of HIPS includes the families and communities of those engaged in drug use and sex work. Condom distribution and syringe exchange affects families; so do the policies and evaluations of said programs. Equally, the defunding of these initiatives affects families. We cannot ignore how families will be touched from each equation.

A city is but a collection of families, and each family beholds a particular dynamic. No family is unaffected by crime, affordable housing, transportation, medical access, and law enforcement. Everything is cyclical: my family’s influence has shaped me into the person I am today, and my work will affect the next family and eventually land at my family’s front doorstep. The world is too small for me to think for one moment that MY family lives unscathed. These are my cousins, my aunts, and my uncles. This is my family and they shall be treated as such. I want to make my family proud and stronger. 

 

Hubert and Debra Laws – Family